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Judi
Bari Web Site

Juror says FBI and cops lied (posted
7/9/02)

On July 2, Judge Claudia Wilken lifted the gag order
barring jurors from talking to the media. Following are newspaper stories
from the SF Chronicle and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat based on interviews
with two of the jurors.

Cops, FBI lied about probe, juror says
Woman speaks out on Earth First trial after gag order lifted

Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writer

Three weeks after they ordered Oakland police and the FBI to pay Earth
First organizers $4.4 million, jurors were allowed to speak for the first
time Tuesday, and one of them said "investigators were lying so much it
was insulting."

"The FBI and Oakland (police) sat up there and lied about their
investigation," said juror Mary Nunn of Oakley. "They messed up
their investigation, and they had to lie again and again to try to cover up.
I'm surprised that they seriously expected anyone would believe them."

Nunn spoke out about the verdict Tuesday after U.S. District Judge
Claudia Wilken, responding to the request by the Chronicle and the Oakland
Tribune, lifted her gag order on jurors giving interviews.

Wilken's order applies to the media but does not permit jurors to discuss
the case with attorneys.

Four jurors declined to be interviewed. The other five did not return
calls or could not be reached.

Wilken issued the gag order minutes after the jury announced its verdict
on June 11 in a civil trial stemming from a May 24, 1990, car bombing in
Oakland.

In one of the biggest civil rights verdicts of its kind, the 10-member
jury unanimously ordered FBI agents and Oakland police officers to pay
damages to the estate of Earth First activist Judi Bari and fellow organizer
Darryl Cherney.

Both organizers were injured in the bombing -- and then arrested by
investigators who thought Bari and Cherney were carrying a bomb to use it
elsewhere.

The environmentalists said investigators had never seriously considered
that the unknown person who placed a pipe in Bari's car might be opposed to
Earth First.

The jury unanimously found six investigators -- FBI agents and police
officers -- had violated the pair's constitutional rights to free speech and
protection from unlawful searches.

Bari, who died of cancer in 1997, and Cherney argued that the
investigation, which has never cleared them as suspects, had undermined
their credibility and hurt their ability to promote forest preservation.

Nunn said that after a five-week trial members of the panel all found
"the FBI really lacked credibility" in testimony. She said in
deliberations members of the jury talked about contradictions in the
accounts of Oakland police and the FBI.

"Police tried to blame their mistakes on the FBI, but the FBI was
trying to shove the blame right back," Nunn said. "No one in law
enforcement was willing to say 'we made a mistake' and stand up and admit
it. They were evasive. They were arrogant. They were defensive."

She said jurors had agreed early in deliberations that the Cherney and
Bari had been wronged but spent more than two weeks determining exactly who
among the investigators was responsible and how to apportion damages.

The jury, after some disagreements, deadlocked on one count involving
Cherney's arrest and exonerated law enforcement on a conspiracy count.

But overall they handed Bari and Cherney a big victory.

"We took our time and tried to do everything right," Nunn said.

The night before the jurors made their final votes, she said "I got
on my knees and prayed to God to stop me if this is the wrong thing. I've
never done anything like this. Going against the FBI is a big deal. I wanted
to be sure."

Nunn, a ticket agent at American Airlines, said she wanted protection
from terrorism like the Sept. 11 attacks. But her jury experience made her
skeptical about giving law enforcement a blank check to bypass civil
liberties.

"This trial taught me what it means to be American," Nunn said.
"I realize that freedom is something we can never take for granted. . .
. We are free because we hold people in power to a higher standard."

Federal jurors, freed of a judge's gag order imposed on them after a $4.4
million verdict was returned in favor of Earth First activists Judi Bari and
Darryl Cherney, said Tuesday they were determined to send a message that
individual civil liberties can't be sacrificed even in the face of terrorist
threats.

"Those two people were quickly accused by the FBI and Oakland police
of being violent eco-terrorists, yet there wasn't a shred of evidence to
support that contention, then or now," said juror Mary Nunn, a former
Santa Rosa resident who now lives in Contra Costa County.

Nunn and juror Karen Latines, a Concord resident, spoke publicly after
U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken formally notified jurors Tuesday
that she was lifting a gag order imposed on the 10-member jury after
unanimous verdicts were returned June 11 against six of seven defendants --
three FBI agents and three Oakland police investigators.

Neither jury forewoman Janet Reinstra of Walnut Creek nor seven other
jurors -- all Bay Area residents -- could be reached Tuesday for comment on
the trial's outcome and the gag order.

Nunn and Latines agreed to be the first jurors to talk publicly about
their eight-week trial experience, described by them as "intense"
and "enlightening."

Nunn, a ticket agent for American Airlines, said she understands the fear
the Sept. 11 attacks struck in the hearts of all Americans. "We were
all traumatized," she said.

Nunn, said, however, she worries a government push to expand domestic
surveillance tactics in order to combat feared terrorism could result in
more incidents of civil rights abuses such as those claimed by Bari and
Cherney.

Nunn said in the Bari civil rights case, which stemmed from a
still-unsolved 1990 car bombing that permanently injured Bari, the basic
scenario seemed clear to the jury almost from the beginning.

"The FBI and Oakland police immediately jumped to the conclusion Ms.
Bari and Mr. Cherney were dangerous, and they falsified and misstated the
facts to arrest them and search their homes before they even did the most
basic investigation," said Nunn.

Bari died in March of 1997 from breast cancer. Her heirs and Cherney were
finally able to bring the case to trial after 11 years of legal wrangling.

Latines, a Concord resident, said she is satisfied that the amount of
damages jurors awarded to Bari and Cherney ensured that "our voices
were heard."

Latines described the three weeks of jury deliberations as
"exhausting."

Nunn called them "grueling."

But even as the deliberations stretched into weeks -- a record for the
Oakland federal court where the Bari case was tried -- jurors remained civil
and friendly, according to Nunn and Latines.

"We were very organized, and very careful to let everyone have their
say. I don't think you could find a more fair jury. We took our
responsibility seriously, and we worked hard to come to some
resolution," said Nunn.

Nunn and Latines said the 10-member jury early in the deliberations
reached general agreement that the Bari case had been badly handled, and
that police misconduct had violated the two activists' constitutional
protections from false arrest and illegal search and seizure.

"But it took a lot of time to decide who was responsible for what,
and how much damages should be awarded," said Nunn.

In the end, three defendants bore the brunt of the case. Retired FBI
agent Frank Doyle and his former supervisor John Reikes and former Oakland
Police Lt. Michael Sims were held responsible for about $4.1 million of the
total awarded to Bari and Cherney.

Nunn said the jury targeted the trio because of their supervisory roles.
"They shaped how this case was handled, and they were wrong," said
Nunn.

Nunn said jurors were too divided to reach agreement on Cherney's false
arrest claim, or his and Bari's allegation that the FBI and police had
conspired against them. Nunn said some jurors believed that because at least
12 hours apparently elapsed between the time of the car bombing and
Cherney's formal arrest, investigators might have reasonably believed there
was adequate probable cause to make an arrest.

Nunn and Latines said they hope the verdicts will serve as a reminder of
the importance of protecting civil liberties.

Nunn cited a Bari family statement issued after the jury returned the
verdicts.

Written by Martha Bari, the activist's younger sister who lives in Silver
Springs, Md., the statement concluded "The verdict reminds us that
protection against terrorism should never outweigh the protection of our own
civil rights. Otherwise, like my sister Judi Bari, we will be made to suffer
the consequences."

From the beginning of deliberations, a federal jury was convinced that
the FBI and Oakland police had trampled the constitutional rights of Earth
First activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney, but jurors needed 17 days to
meticulously examine the case and award damages.

"We didn't want to rush to judgment, like we felt the FBI and
Oakland police had done in this case. We were very cautious," said a
juror who agreed to give an inside account of the marathon deliberations
only on condition of anonymity.

The jury's bottom line "There were too many lies and manipulation of
the evidence. And way too much guilt by association. Law enforcement isn't
supposed to do that. They should rely on the truth to make a case."

Some jurors held out for substantially more damages than the $4.4 million
awarded this week. But others, while convinced of law enforcement
misconduct, wanted to award only nominal damages.

"In the end, the amounts we decided upon were an average. It took a
lot of compromise on everyone's part to reach agreement," the juror
said.

Three of the seven defendants in the case bore the brunt of the jury's
decision. Retired FBI Agents John Reikes and Frank Doyle and former Oakland
Police Lt. Michael Sims were held responsible for about $4.1 million of the
combined damages awarded to Bari and Cherney.

"Those three shaped the events surrounding this case, and they were
wrong. No one has any doubt about that," the juror said.

After their verdict Tuesday, jurors were instructed by U.S. District
Judge Claudia Wilken not to discuss the case with trial attorneys, the
public or the media because of the possibility of appeals.

Government lawyers and Bari attorneys said afterward the judge's demand
would hamper the usual post-trial analysis of the civil case, which was
decided after unusually lengthy jury deliberations.

Some jurors were prepared to publicly discuss the case after the
verdicts, but declined to comment in view of the judge's edict.

According to the account related to The Press Democrat, there was little
doubt among jurors soon after deliberations began that the six of the seven
defendants -- three retired FBI agents and three veteran Oakland police
investigators -- had "rushed to judgment" against Bari and Cherney
in 1990, falsely accusing them of being responsible for their own car
bombing. The seventh defendant, a FBI agent, was cleared.

"There was always a majority willing to return verdicts in favor of
the plaintiffs. Everyone had strong feelings the case had been handled
wrong," the juror said.

The 10-member jury was selected largely from Bay Area suburbs, including
Redwood City, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Concord and Burlingame. A few jurors
lived in Oakland. Jurors ranged in age from 29 to 68 and hold mostly
white-collar jobs a bank vice president, two engineers, a computer
technician, a retired teacher and a training specialist for a biotech firm.

They only had the slightest awareness of the radical Earth First movement
that was organizing protests against redwood logging or the political
turmoil that surrounded Bari and Cherney and their activities in 1990.

"We didn't know anything about timber issues, or what was really
going on with the redwoods. But we all had an understanding of the intensity
surrounding such issues as abortion, so we figured things had to be
somewhere along those lines," the juror said.

Jurors struggled to sift through sharply conflicting accounts by FBI
agents and police of what happened in the first 24 hours after the pipe bomb
exploded, ripping through Bari's Subaru station wagon as she drove along
Park Avenue near MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland. Bari and Cherney, a
passenger, were on their way to an organizing event in Santa Cruz for a
planned Redwood Summer of logging protests.

Bari, who suffered permanent pelvic injuries, died of breast cancer in
1997. Cherney was slightly injured.

Doyle, then a bomb investigator with the FBI's counterterrorism unit in
San Francisco, was the first FBI agent to arrive at the scene. He quickly
told Oakland investigators that it appeared the bomb had been in clear view
of Bari and Cherney, meaning they must have been transporting it when it
accidentally exploded.

Within hours, Reikes, then head of the FBI's San Francisco
counterterrorism unit, briefed a gathering of local and federal
investigators about the suspected links of Earth First to acts of sabotage
in Arizona, Santa Cruz and other areas. Sims, Oakland's chief investigator,
decided to arrest Bari and Cherney within hours of the blast.

"Why did they act so quickly? Why did they rush to arrest them, and
eagerly report that to the news media? Ms. Bari was seriously injured and in
the hospital. She wasn't going anywhere. Neither was Mr. Cherney. Why didn't
they wait, do their homework, and gather the facts? We don't know. We still
don't," the juror said.

Jurors worked well together, resolving their disagreements amicably over
the three weeks of deliberations.

"At one point, we had a whole wall covered with charts. We worked
very hard to understand what had happened, and what went wrong. There were
times we felt we were going in circles," the juror said.

But there was never a time when a majority accepted the argument that the
defendants had "probable cause" to arrest and accuse Bari and
Cherney so quickly.

"There was never a chance that these officers were going to be
cleared," the juror said.

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